Meryl Streep attends the 2014 National Board Of Review Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on January 7, 2014 in New York City. / Andrew H. Walker Getty Images

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

Being the most lauded living actress working today gives you serious leeway when it comes to making speeches.

Even at awards dinners, where normally, folks stick to the glib and safe.

But not Meryl Streep, who at the National Board of Review gala on Tuesday lashed out at Walt Disney, the subject of the feel-good movie Saving Mr. Banks.

"Some of his associates reported that Walt Disney didn't really like women," she said, before presenting the best-actress prize to Emma Thompson.

Streep also discussed Disney's support of "an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group" and called him a "gender bigot."

As for Thompson, said Streep, "Not only is she not irascible, she's practically a saint."

So will these comments have an impact, if any, on both the film's chances (Oscar voting just ended) and Streep's shot at yet another nomination, or win, for August: Osage County?

Most likely not. "It's been blown up into a big thing but most voters don't even know it happened and most of those who do don't care," says awards expert Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter.

Adds Tom O'Neill, the editor of GoldDerby.com: "If anything, her tirade may help her. There's no excitement to her Oscar campaign right now. Film critics are shrugging off her movie and everybody's tired of her winning awards all the time. Heck, BATFA voters even snubbed her and they're usually notorious Streep lovers."

The reaction from other film experts is similar. Nothing Streep said was groundbreaking or new or shocking.

But, writes Yahoo!'s Thelma Adams, "She did her sister actress a solid that Thompson's own publicists may have had difficulty accomplishing in the shadow of the Disney studio machine. Streep managed, in one night's speech in front of a stellar audience, to separate the star from the movie so that Thompson can be a Best Actress contender as Saving Mr. Banks sinks from the top five contenders."

And writes prognosticator Sasha Stone, of AwardsDaily.com, "What Streep did â?? now listen closely, Oscarwatchers because it looks to me like y'all missed the point â?? was take some of that heat off of Thompson and put it on Disney, where it belonged. Do I think Saving Mr. Banks is a good film? Yes. Do I think it deserves to be ripped apart by people who don't have a presidential election to tweet about? Nope. Should any of that 'controversy' have impacted, in any way whatsoever, Emma Thompson's chances at winning an Oscar? Do I even have to answer that question?"